Summerhill (17 page)

“But I don’t remember you saying that!” Summerhill hadn’t meant for that response to be so loud or forceful, and so he made sure to tone himself back down. “And I don’t remember my saying yes or...” His fingers clutched at the empty air in frustration. “Look, when I get close to you, it’s like I can’t control myself.”

“Gee, thanks. That’s real romantic.”

Summerhill growled under his breath, but this far away, Tek probably couldn’t hear it. “I... That’s not what I mean. I mean I
actually
lose control of what I’m doing. I see things, hear things, get my senses mixed up.” Again he looked into the otter’s eyes. “You’re saying you’re not responsible for that?”

Wind whipped through the meadow again, carrying some flower petals aloft. “Hey, you’re the one who bumped into me and started going on about how I reminded you of someone you used to know,” Tek said. “I could say that you’re the one who seduced me.”

Except you’re not the one who’s getting his head scrambled,
Summerhill thought to himself. “You don’t mean that.”

Tek sighed. “No, I don’t. This is just—This is a big deal for my people, for me, and I’m not sure what to do now.”

Summerhill looked off into the distance. The orange Rydale sun glowed bright in the purple sky. “Want to talk about it while we try to figure out where we are?” he offered.

“I guess that works,” Tek said, and then he got to his feet, smacking clumps of dirt and grass away from his legs. “Can we at least walk together?”

“We can walk in the same direction. Until we can sort out what happens when I get close to you, though, I think we should keep our distance.”

Tek didn’t look at all happy about it, but he nodded all the same. “Okay,” he said, and then he started walking in the direction of a nearby hill. “Let’s see if we can get a better vantage point from over there.”

The field was quiet except for the occasional gust of wind. Neither Summerhill nor Tek spoke for a while as they marched toward the small hill. Every so often, Summerhill would turn to look at Tek, and once in a while the otter would turn to look at him, but they remained silent.

The hill was steeper than Summerhill had guessed from a distance. The dog was still exhausted from—well, from the night before, and he had a hard time masking his tired grunts and raspy panting as he fought to make his way uphill.

“And here I thought you had more stamina than that,” Tek murmured. Maybe he hadn’t meant for Summerhill to hear it, but the canine’s keen ears picked it up anyway.

Now that Tek had broken the silence, staying quiet was more awkward than continuing the discussion. “You don’t regret what we did, do you?” Summerhill asked.

Tek came to a stop and looked back at Summerhill. “I didn’t at the time, no,” he said. “But I thought we both knew what we were getting into, and it looks like I was wrong about that.”

Summerhill laid his ears back. “Just so I know, what were we getting into? I mean, from your perspective.”

The otter blinked a few times. “You really don’t remember, do you?”

“If my plan were to go back on my word, I’d like to think I’d come up with something more clever and convincing than ‘I don’t remember.’”

Tek was silent for a while, but he never took his eyes off Summerhill. “You’re right,” he said at last. “I respect you more than that.” Summerhill winced, feeling the words as a barb against him. “And to be fair, it’s not like I had the time or the presence of mind to fully explain the situation to you in the heat of the moment.”

It was everything that Summerhill did remember that made him feel even worse about the situation he was in. He still remembered all the passion and devotion he’d felt at the time, far stronger than the strange echoes of the scattered memories that didn’t make sense. “I’m listening now,” he said to Tek. “If you still want to explain it to me.”

“Sure.” There was a heavy sigh in the otter’s voice. He started to climb the hill again, leaving Summerhill with no real choice but to follow. At least their brief stop had let him catch his breath. “Just give me a minute to find the right words.”

They made it to the top of the hill, finally, getting a look at the area beyond. There was still no sign of civilization, but the sight was still one that made Summerhill pause to collect himself. Wide swaths of rainbow-colored Rydale wildflowers covered the gently sloping valley down below, a soft breeze making the tall grasses ripple elegantly. Large trees dotted the open landscape, their tops flat, the expanse of their branches wider than their trunks were tall. Orange sunlight glinted off of the surface of a small creek that wound its way through a rockier section of the valley.

There were probably worse fates than having to stay here forever, Summerhill had to admit. Still, though this would make a lovely home, it wasn’t
his
home. He still had to find his way out of here. He still had to find Katherine.

“Basically,” Tek said, his voice pulling Summerhill out of his reverie, “you and I made a commitment to each other. A very serious commitment.”

Summerhill kept his eyes on his feet as he started walking down the hill. “Because of what I said?” Try as he might, he didn’t remember swearing any oaths or making any elaborate promises.

“Well, no.” There was awkwardness in Tek’s body language that didn’t show in his voice. “It was more what we did.”

“Oh.” Summerhill made even more sure not to look up as he kept walking. “Did we do something special?”

Tek started walking faster. “You mean other than sleep with each other?” Out of the corner of his eye, Summerhill could see that the otter had both of his paws stuffed into his pockets. “I’d say that’s pretty special.”

“I’m not saying it wasn’t.” Summerhill’s steps started to get slower as Tek’s got faster, and eventually the dog came to a halt as he put all the pieces together. “Wait, you’re saying that, because we slept together, we have to stay together?”

It looked like Tek almost tripped over his own feet as he stopped and turned around. “That’s a strange concept to you?”

In truth, Summerhill couldn’t say whether it should have been strange or not, since he wasn’t sure what his own people’s views on that sort of thing were. “Not necessarily strange. It just seems kind of... final.”

“Look, I realize that you’re an otherworlder, but this is how my people do things. And I did explain that much ahead of time.”

Summerhill overtook Tek again, letting gravity help propel his steps downhill. “I don’t suppose that otherworlders are excluded from these traditions of yours.”

Tek took off after him. “Summerhill, come on, I’m being serious,” he said. “I get that all this is unfamiliar to you, but we do have a good reason for doing things this way.”

“I never said you didn’t. I’m just trying to figure out what the best solution for both of us is.”

“The best solution is for you to stay here with me.” Tek had gotten closer now, close enough that Summerhill was just barely able to smell him over the aroma of flowers. “I know that you left your friend behind on the
Nusquam
, but there’s not really a whole lot we can do about that right now.”

Summerhill strode faster, trying to put more distance between them, but Tek kept up, his shorter legs allowing him to trundle downhill with less risk of stumbling. Now the scent of otter was once again full and strong in the canine’s nose. It was enough to make him stop and let his companion catch up. “I’d appreciate it,” he said as Tek drew up closer to him, “if you’d be willing to help me find something to do about it.”

Tek looked a little nervous. “I guess we’re not completely out of options,” he admitted. “We could always see about petitioning to be colonists on one of our off-world colonies.”

“Wait. Off-world colonies?” Summerhill asked. Part of him was struggling to even hold up this line of questioning, the rest of him just wanting to hold the otter close. “Your civilization has space travel?”

Tek nodded. “Of course. I mean, it’s still not faster-than-light, but I was thinking maybe, by the time we emerged from cryo-sleep at our destination, enough time might have conceivably passed that we’d have developed it, and—”

“You want to put us into suspended animation?”

“Well, if you’re that intent on finding a way to contact the
Nusquam
, probably our best bet is to jump ahead in time until we have the technology to reach a civilization that has a means of doing exactly that.”

Summerhill backed away several steps, inhaling deeply of the wildflowers to clear the otter’s scent out of his mind. “Tek, my friend is there
now
,” he explained. “Jumping forward in time several decades doesn’t really do me a whole lot of good.”

Tek just laughed. “It’s a ship that breaks the rules of reality and flies between different universes. You think it can’t travel in time, too?”

Katherine’s spiel about things that ought to be impossible came to mind, and Summerhill wondered whether he should even bother thinking that Tek’s supposition might be ridiculous. “Okay, fine,” he conceded. “Assuming you’re right, we just... what, we settle down for a few years and hope that we get picked as a couple to help colonize some new planet?”

A proud smile crossed Tek’s blunt, whiskery muzzle. “I’ve got
some pretty good connections. We could probably pull it off.”

Summerhill rubbed his fingers against the bridge of his muzzle. “So, because we slept with each other one time, we’re actually an official, legal thing, now?”

Tek nodded. “With good reason. Our species typically gives birth to litters of anywhere from two to six pups at a time, and so our social contract naturally evolved to support the tradition that, if you mate with someone, you’re committed to not just abandoning them.”

A hard lump formed in Summerhill’s throat. He looked deep into the otter’s eyes, unable to mask his freshly reemerged anxiety. “Wait. Are you saying I got you pregnant?”

There was a long, long moment where Tek stared back at him, and then, without warning, the otter doubled over with raucous laughter. His giggles were like chirping barks that rang through the valley, and his thick tail pressed against the ground to keep him stable as his body shook. He waved a webbed paw in Summerhill’s general direction, as if to imply reassurance as he gasped and caught his breath, his wriggly body still off balance for a few moments longer.

“Sorry,” he said once he could speak again. “Sorry. I know I shouldn’t laugh. That’s just really funny.”

Summerhill could feel the tiny hairs that lined the insides of his ears stand on end as he fought back a blush. “So then I didn’t get you—”

“I’m not a girl, Summerhill. I’d have hoped you noticed that.” Tek was still grinning like an idiot.

“You just said that this whole ‘staying together’ thing was all because of raising children!”

“I said that’s where it started,” the otter said. “I didn’t mean to imply that tradition superseded basic biology.”

“I was just on a cruise ship where balls of gas can talk and where giant insects made of wood can take bar orders. How am I suppose to know what ‘basic biology’ is on your planet?”

Tek smiled. “Fine, I’ll grant you that.”

Summerhill paced around on the grass. “Okay, so I’m male, you’re male, and there’s no risk of us having a family together,” he said, thinking aloud. “But by sleeping together, we’re still committing to each other?”

“The gesture is still effectively the same,” Tek explained. “Truth be told, I kind of always assumed that I’d wind up with another guy. Winding up with an otherworlder... well, that’s another story.”

Now that the laughter was behind them, Summerhill took it upon himself to get them moving again. “How are you supposed to know if you even want to be with someone for the long term if you haven’t ever been intimate with them?” he asked.

“There are more important things to a relationship than sex,” Tek said. “But moreover, since this has been the way we’ve always done things, we’ve developed instincts that lead us to figure out who we’re compatible with.” He gestured with his webbed fingers as he walked and talked. “And I mean, it’s not like people don’t date or go through courtship rituals first.”

“What about me?” Summerhill asked.

“What about you?”

“You knew me for how long before we had sex? Like, a few minutes?”

Tek lowered his head sheepishly. “Like I said, we’ve developed instincts, too,” he murmured. “You struck me as a good fit for what I was looking for.”

Summerhill sighed. As much as he liked Tek, he didn’t want his whole life derailed just because of Rydale custom when he had important things to do. “And so the part about the two of us being an official couple. That’s your ‘in’ for this colonization project that can get us off the planet?”

“Pretty much,” the otter affirmed. “I don’t have a very big place to live right now, but I guess it’s not like you have a lot in the way of material possessions, so we should be okay until we can afford—”

“Tek, I think you’re missing the fact that it might not be
safe
for me to live with you,” Summerhill interrupted. “I know you’re not doing it on purpose—” (He was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least.) “—but that doesn’t mean these problems won’t still happen.”

The otter was silent for a while. Summerhill couldn’t really blame him for feeling bad about the situation; it was clear that he was really attracted to the mysterious canine from another world, and societal awkwardness notwithstanding, there was still a rather large wrench in the works. “You seem to be okay if you stay away from me, though,” he pointed out. “Does that still seem to be part of it?”

Summerhill nodded. “Once I get close enough to you that I can smell you, I—” The obvious answer finally hit him. “That’s it. It’s being able to smell you that does it.”

The sudden pause caused Tek to pick up on Summerhill’s train of thought, too. “My scent makes me irresistible?” He laughed tepidly. “Coming from one of my own people, in ordinary circumstances, I’d take that as a really nice compliment.”

“And it’s not just that,” Summerhill continued, his mind putting together the other pieces of the puzzle. “I also seem to hallucinate when I, er, taste you.”

Now Tek’s wide little eyes went even wider. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not sure what it is. Maybe the oils in your fur. But whatever it is, it’s a very... unique sort of mind-altering experience.” Summerhill ran his tongue along the back of his teeth, recalling the sensations he’d felt when kissing and licking the otter.

Tek plodded along glumly. “So you can’t smell me, touch me, or kiss me.” When he spelled it out in those terms, he sounded even sadder.

“Now imagine what might happen if I go into an entire city full of you guys,” Summerhill said. “Probably nothing good.”

They were closer to the creek now, near enough that Summerhill could clearly hear the water burbling over the gentle breeze. Tek walked up to it, taking an exaggerated circle around Summerhill as he kept his distance. He knelt down and ran his fingertips through the water. “So then I guess we really can’t stay together.”

“Well, look at it this way,” Summerhill offered. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere, right? So it’s not like anyone else knows what we did.”